Club World Cup: Top European clubs refuse to take part in revamped tournament before 2024 despite Gianni Infantino’s plans

A letter has been sent to UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin from the European Club Association outlining their refusal to change the match calendar before 2024

By talkSPORT

15th March 2019,3:45 pm

Europe’s top clubs have told Gianni Infantino they will not take part in a revamped Club World Cup in 2021, scuppering the FIFA president’s plans until at least 2024.

The stark message comes in a letter to UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin from the European Club Association, which represents 232 of the continent’s leading teams, and was sent via email on Tuesday, three days before a crucial meeting of FIFA’s ruling council in Miami on Friday.

The letter is believed to remind Ceferin that the ECA “is unwilling to consider any new or significantly revised competition prior to a holistic assessment” of the international match calendar, which has been agreed until 2024.

Ceferin, however, did not really need reminding of this as he and the ECA are in agreement in their anger at how Infantino has gone about this attempt to rewrite the calendar

But the letter will enable the Slovenian, who is also a FIFA vice-president, to tell FIFA there can be no new money-spinner without the game’s biggest stars.

Infantino has been trying to get approval for his new Club World Cup for a year and it had seemed he was inching closer to victory this week, as German federation boss and FIFA Council member Reinhard Grindel said he backed the idea – a possible sign that Europe’s opposition was splintering.

The current seven-team competition is held every winter but is largely ignored in Europe, football’s largest market, and FIFA is desperate to breathe new life into it and earn more money to distribute throughout the game.

The FIFA plan has evolved since Infantino first mentioned it at a FIFA Council meeting in Colombia last year but the latest idea is for 24 teams – eight from Europe, six from South America, three each from Africa, Asia and North and Central America and one from Oceania – to play in a pilot tournament that could be worth £50million to each club.

But despite that sweetener, Europe’s elite are unmoved and the language of the letter, which has been signed by Manchester United vice-chairman Ed Woodward, Celtic’s Peter Lawwell and the bosses of Ajax, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Paris St Germain, is implacable.

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Using phrases such as “much to our disappointment” and “utter disregard”, the ECA criticises FIFA for failing to consult properly, with the ‘Taskforce’ set up to resolve Europe’s concerns not letting the clubs discuss the international match calendar or examine Infantino’s financial plans.

On the issue of the calendar, the ECA stance could not be clearer, as it points out a pilot tournament in June 2021 would “result in the following uninterrupted sequence of competitions”: national and UEFA club competitions until the end of May, an international window including the UEFA Nations League finals, an 18-day Club World Cup from June 17-July 4, the Africa Cup of Nations and CONCACAF Gold Cup in July, and then the new domestic seasons.

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“In proposing this calendar…FIFA confirms that the protection and well-being of players and the vital interests of clubs are not a priority for football’s world governing body,” it said.

This places the clubs on the same side of the argument as world players’ union FIFPro, which made its opposition to the plan public on Wednesday.

The ECA is also annoyed that Infantino’s other big proposal from 12 months ago, a global Nations League, has not been killed off, despite no real enthusiasm for it from anywhere.

And it is scathing about FIFA’s refusal to reveal more details on who its backers are for the new tournaments, although it is widely believed to be investors from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in a group led by Japan’s technology fund SoftBank.

FIFA’s failure to “provide any meaningful information” on the proposal to sell 49 per cent of the new events – in a 12-year deal worth 25billion US dollars (£18.8billion) – is “perturbing” and inconsistent with its “stated objectives to modernise” and operate in an “open and transparent manner”.

The letter concludes by saying the ECA’s members are willing to talk about how a revamped Club World Cup might fit in the calendar after 2024, which they believe was settled in an agreement reached with FIFA in 2015.